Stumped – A Puzzback Special

Welcome to another installment of Stumped. Usually I’d be talking the latest tantalising puzzle treat, but this time I thought I’d do an extra special blog. This time I’ll be doing a puzzle throwback, or ‘puzzback’, to look at some tried and very much tested puzzle games of the past.

I’d like to pay my dues to Tetris Attack. Released for the SNES and Gameboy back in 1996, Tetris Attack was one of the first puzzle based games I ever played on a console and I quickly became addicted to it.

In the single-player story mode, you play as Yoshi who’s determined to rescue his friends who have been brainwashed by the evil Bowser. With each stage, you need to beat your friend in a Vs match in order to lift the curse. You also get a chance to play against Bowser’s minions who helped with his dastardly plan. Once you’ve worked your way through the various levels, you finally get your chance to exact revenge on Bowser.

Now the title, I agree, is a little misleading. It does say ‘Tetris’, but in Tetris Attack, you are presented with a growing stack of multi-coloured blocks and not the falling of shapes. The main aim is to clear the blocks before it reaches the top of your screen. This is done by swapping two blocks at a time to make a match of three or more blocks, clearing your stack. By clearing more than three blocks, you then score a Combo. You can also make chains with blocks that have fallen after creating a chain. The more combos and chains you make, the higher the score. Creating chains and combos also become the aim of the game during a versus match. With each successful chain and combo, a garbage block is then sent to your opponent. The bigger the chain or combo achieved the bigger the garbage block that lands on your opponent’s stack. Whilst these blocks can be cleared, it can only be done one layer at a time so you have got to get rid of that garbage block pronto!

With several single-player modes which include Endless, Timed, Stage Clear, Puzzle and of course Versus, Tetris Attack was able to keep you entertained for hours. Brace yourself for some bad news, though: Tetris Attack is not available on the Wii Virtual Console, which I know is just a little bit shit. But not to worry, there are tons of really nifty ROMs available with Tetris Attack which you can download so you can combo and chain the day away.

It’s always cool to look back at games, not only to appreciate what fantastic graphics we have now, but simply because these games just rock. Until next time; keep on puzzlin’!